Deadly Boss Mods Addon Guide

Deadly Boss Mods (DBM) is a popular addon that assists players in tracking and reacting to the many boss mechanics one might encounter during a dungeon or raid in World of Warcraft. This guide goes over some of the core utilities, features, and customization options that DBM has to offer and how they can help you be a better player.

Main Features

DBM has many core features and capabilities, but two in particular, the Raid Warnings and Timer Bars, stand out the most as what you will most commonly be utilizing. Below is a brief overview of how these features appear and what makes them so useful.

Raid Warnings

One of the most important features of DBM is its warnings made specifically for each boss encounter to alert players on how to react to certain mechanics or boss abilities. These warnings appear in a variety of ways such as popup text and sound effects. DBM will also have your character say information, announcing to other players that you are effected by something like a debuff and often with a countdown or target marker.

Warnings change depending on the situation, with severe mechanics having more attention grabbing effects such as the screen flashing or a louder sound effect. Some warnings are more specialized too, such as playing a sound that tells you to move away from others when receiving a debuff that could harm the raid. There are even warnings specific to the player specialization, warning healers when to dispel and tanks when to taunt. These features can not only help increase your awareness and reaction times, but also assist in correctly doing mechanics you have forgotten or have not seen before.

How warnings look during setup.

Example of a warning message during a raid encounter.

Timer Bars

A large portion of boss abilities and mechanics are scripted or happen at specific times. DBM provides timer bars that track major events so that preparing for them is an easy task. It organizes them into larger and smaller bars, with the larger bars being events that are going to happen sooner. These timers are essential for planning ahead, which can make a world of difference for your performance in a group. Knowing what a boss will do before it even happens is invaluable in any PvE situation.

Tanks can see when deadly tank mechanics are due to take place, allowing them to plan their defensive abilities and be more efficient with resources.

Healers can better decide on using or saving large healing cooldowns to increase the survivability, as using a strong ability at the wrong time can be the difference between a kill and a wipe.

Damage dealers can plan ahead by saving cooldowns or resources for extra enemy spawns or times when the boss is vulnerable for maximum DPS. Staying alive is also important, so knowing when to use a defensive ability can prevent you from dying, especially on higher level M+ and affixes such as Tyrannical.

The timer bars in the image above are from the encounter with . But as a DPS player, I am most likely not interested in keeping track of when he uses 暗影突击 as it is primarily a tank mechanic. Luckily, changing which timers appear is an easy task.

First open up the settings interface by typing /dbm in chat.

On the left you should see a list of raids. Expand the one you are interested in and select the boss you want to change timers for.

Scroll down to the section of settings that says "Bars" an uncheck the mechanics you don't want tracked as a timer. The image bellow shows the check boxes to select.

Customizing DBM

The addon interface allows for deep customization of every encounter. You can specifically select which mechanics you would like to receive warnings about for each boss as well as customize how those warnings are displayed. By selecting general options, you can find specific options for the different elements of DBM. From here, the size, font, color, and sounds that play with warnings can be changed.

Making these changes is easy, as DBM provides size sliders and color selectors for the font options as well as a drop down selection for picking sounds to play with the warnings. Moving the DBM elements is also simple. When selecting the general options for that element, you can find a button that says “Move me” or “Set position” which will cause a test warning or timer bar to appear. Once the test element has appeared, you can move it to any desired location.

How to Change Global Options

Here are some step-by-step instructions on how to changes these settings in DBM:

Type “/dbm” into your chat window to open the DBM settings window.

Select the “Options” tab at the top left of the window.

On the left side of the settings window you should now see different aspects of the addon listed, such as Raid Warnings and Bar Setup. Clicking these will open specific options to that DBM element on the right. Here you can also find profile options, allowing you to have multiple different set ups.

From here you can see sliding bars that affect duration of the warning, font size, font type, and more. You can also set the sound effect to play with that type of warning.

You can also click the “Move me” or “Set position” buttons to have a placeholder warning or timer bar pop up that you can move freely on your screen to the desired location.

Configuring Special Warnings

You can specifically customize the special warnings to better help you react to certain types of mechanics by going to the "Special Warnings" section of the Options tab. If you scroll down, you can see configurations for each individual type of special warning. From here, you can customize the appearance and sound effect for each type of special warning to fit your own personal needs. DBM's own guide for customizing special warning sounds covers when each type of warning is used (you can see the full guide here):

"Type 1 is generic warning or "debuff on you". Type 2 is aoe warning such as "aoe damage incoming", "aoe fear incoming" etc that are important but not something that is individual responsibility and more of a watch out warning. Type 3 is the VERY Important warning that means "do this or you're going to die" or "this is a raid wiping mechanic if you don't interrupt/do this". Type 4 is the "run away" type that means "you need to run and keep running to get/stay safe". Type 5 is the type that only fires if you enter your name into the Notes Feature. Each type has it's own flash, sound, and repeat options."

As mentioned in the quote, you can also set notes for special warnings when changing the settings for individual bosses. This allows you to add on more information to these warnings, such as interrupt orders or cooldowns to use. The settings for the Type 5 special warnings are used then your player name is in the note for a specific mechanic, so you can have a specialized alert not just for that mechanic, but for any specific one you need to react to. For example, healers might be assigned to use a cooldown when a certain mechanic takes place. If you were in charge of the third time it is cast, you can put your name in the special warning note for that cast for different warning effects! For specific steps on how to set this up, check out DBM's notes guide here.

Example of setting a note on a special warning.

Configuring Timer Bars by Type

Similar to the Special Warnings, the bars have types as well. These types are (as described in DBM's color bars by type guide):

"Timers fall under 7 type classifications. Adds, AOEs, Targeted, Interrupts, Role, and Phase. Timers that don't fit any of them are set to 0 "no type" and don't use the new colors."

Organizing the timer bars into colors makes it easier at a glance to identify certain events that are coming up. In the specific boss settings, you can change what type of timer each mechanic uses. For more information on advanced timer customization, check out DBM's Color Bars guide mentioned above.

Additional Addons and Features

Upon installation, DBM comes with boss mods for the current expansion and some basic sound effects to keep it lightweight. If you want the mods for older expansions then no need to worry! Older expansions can be added on easily in the same way you would install a normal addon for WoW. You can also get additional sound packs such as Overwatch voices for timer countdowns! The best part about the voice packs is, while they are a feature of DBM, the media files are completely separate. This means that any future updates or changes to DBM will not cause you to lose your custom sounds. Click here to see DBM's own guide on how to use voice packs.

DBM also come packaged with other useful features such as:

Auto-responding to whispers when in the middle of a boss fight. The automated message gives some information on the fight such as the boss and its remaining HP percent. It also messages That person again once the fight ends.

Automatically enabling combat logs.

Hiding game pop ups during boss fights such as Order Hall missions completing or guild achievements that could block your view at a bad time.

Custom timers to coordinate when to pull a boss or pizza breaks. These can be created by typing /pull # or /break # in your chat box, where # is the desired duration.

Records statistics for bosses such as how many kills and wipes you have.

Overall, DBM is an useful addon for new and old players alike, giving you an edge on what to expect and how to react during a boss encounter. Being highly customizable with helpful features on the side just solidifies it as one of the best addons to have for WoW. You can find it on Curse, the Twitch app, or on their website here. You can also find more in depth guides (including videos) for specific features and advanced usage on their forums here.